Page 50 of Falling Backwards (The Edge of Us #1)

MAGGIE

“You’re sure these look okay?”

I ask Emma, turning in the fitting room doorway so she can see the pants from all angles…again.

“They’re not too tight?”

“They’re great.”

She looks at me curiously.

“You keep asking that, though, so do they feel too tight?”

“No, but I….”

Instead of finishing the sentence, I shake my head.

Damn the work pants I have at home; I couldn’t find one pair of them and discovered a hole in the other. My Lucent-appropriate black dresses are dirty, which is my own fault, but still. Emma was the only one free to accompany me to the mall so I can shop for pants to wear for my shift in a little while, and I’ve tried to be quick, but it has taken me almost an hour to end up with the pants I have on now. I like them except that I feel kind of thick in them. The next size up is too big, so it’s this size or nothing.

Fixing things with Luke the other day lightened up a deeply heavy place in me, but I still feel heavy in other ways. Even though my knee is starting to noticeably improve, it’s not doing so quickly enough that I’ve been able to get back to my cardio.

“You what, sister?”

I blink out of watching my hands rub at my hips. Emma is watching me closely.

I open my mouth to dismiss the subject, lifting a hand to literally wave it off.

The tilt of her head stops me. For being such a slight thing, it sure does say a lot. ‘Answer me,’ and, ‘I see how uncomfortable you look,’ and, ‘Now that I’ve cottoned on to whatever this is, I’m not gonna let it go, because I love you.’

Nervousness touches me. I love her, too, so much—and Joy—but there’s a reason I’ve kept my thoughts about my body to myself. There’s a reason I haven’t told either of them why I started exercising or that having to pause it has been hard.

That’s dumb, though, isn’t it? some quiet part of me acknowledges. The girls are my chosen family. I can go to them with anything. I never have to be too embarrassed to talk to them.

I look down from Emma’s expectant gaze.

And…well, I don’t know where that little part of me has been all this time, but…in a soft rush, I realize it’s right.

What have I been hiding my feelings from my best friends for? Being embarrassed truly isn’t a good reason. Besides, I already haven’t hidden them from Luke.

“Maggie?”

Emma prompts gently. The place she holds in my heart warms from how I’m one of the special few people who get to hear that tone from her.

Two other women enter the fitting area, diminishing what privacy we have. So I diffidently reply to Emma.

“I’ll tell you in a minute.”

After I’m closed into my little room again, I sigh and look at my reflection. I can’t help thinking again that I feel….

But the thought doesn’t actually form in full. Other quieter yet firmer thoughts overtake it, like that the pants do look pretty good and they’re a fine choice for work and Luke told me recently that I’m too hard on myself about clothes and I decided he was right, so what’s different between then and today?

Now as I look at my reflection, I try to see myself in that light instead of in one of judgment.

I nod with something like approval.

All right, then. Settled. Time to pay and get out of here.

Halfway through that plan, Emma links her arm with mine in a silent, ‘Okay, spill,’ kind of way—we’re done at the checkout counter, but we’re still in the store. There isn’t anyone close to us, though, so I don’t try to wait until we’re in the open area of the mall. I should’ve told her and Joy this stuff long ago.

So I swallow any remaining nervousness and just do it.

Emma and I stroll along while I talk about having been unhappy with my body for quite some time. I first noticed it when I was still with Marcus and wasn’t pleased about it, but after he dumped me, it really started sticking around in my mind. I haven’t liked how I’ve looked in or out of my clothes; I’ve noticed every extra bit of softness and roundness and every place that isn’t even halfway toned or tight, so I’ve done my best to wear leggings and sweaters. I haven’t liked how I’ve physically felt. And I figured exercise would be the best thing to try out; I knew it would be difficult, but I’d always heard that it was good for mental health as well as physical. Win-win, as long as I could deal with the challenge of it.

She listens without interrupting except for a sympathetic tsk here and a quiet.

“Oh, Maggie,” there.

When I say.

“I was doing well until I got hurt,”

she squeezes the arm linked with hers and throws her other one across us to give me a kind of side-hug.

As I return it, she states.

“And now you don’t like how you feel again.”

Stomach sinking, I nod.

“I’m sorry, girl.”

Our hug slips away. I say.

“I’ve been stressing about it. Angry. I’m falling behind and—”

“You’re not falling behind on anything. You’re okay. And you’ve never been anything but beautiful, Maggie. It has never mattered what size you are.”

Part of me wants to refuse that. Another thirsts to accept it. Another yet wants to shed a few tears—and that one is pulling ahead fast.

I blink at the prickle in my eyes.

“Luke says that too,”

I try not to say too weakly to be heard.

“And you don’t believe him either?”

“I…. Actually, he helps me a lot, but it’s just so hard to shake. I still feel it every day—”

I throw my free hand up.

“—especially since I can’t work out right now. I was making some kind of progress before, and now I’m not doing anything.”

Emma tugs on my arm until I look at her and see her seriousness.

“Hey, I know it’s hard to shake. We all go through times when we don’t like how we look, what with society being the shallow piece of shit that it is, which makes a lot of other people pieces of shit too. We gotta work on that. We gotta learn to see we’re okay the way we are so outside influences can’t constantly drag us down. We gotta be on our own side. The world is demanding enough about things being perfect, which means we can’t be that way to ourselves.”

I give a light, wry laugh.

“But it’s confusing. I—I should feel good about my body no matter what anyone says because my opinion matters more than theirs, right? But if I don’t feel good, doesn’t that matter too? Doesn’t my opinion outshine everyone else’s on that as well? If I’m supposed to love my body and I don’t, then isn’t that a reason to try to change it?”

She doesn’t answer right away. I glance at her and see she’s nodding slightly and slowly, a pensive look on her face. She sees the dichotomy there.

While she thinks, I look around us. We don’t have time to go in any more stores, especially since we’ve been at this slower walking pace thanks to my knee—yeah, I’m thankful it’s getting better, but I still wish it would finish up already. Especially regarding Luke. I want so badly to be able to move freely enough to let our desire for each other loose. It sucks to hold back just because I’m afraid my wound—

Holy shit.

“Holy shit,”

I say out loud in a huff, coming to a stop and causing Emma to do the same.

“What?” she asks.

My pulse has taken off on a sprint, disrupting my Luke thoughts, firing heat into my cheeks, almost making me feel dizzy. Wide-eyed, I stare at where Kyle is coming out of the shoe store just ahead of us, his attention lowered to his phone.

I try to tell Emma he’s there—he’s here—but can’t make my mouth work again, so I think about pointing but don’t actually want to do that in case he looks up and sees me and—

Emma makes a low sound like a snarl, and I know she has seen him on her own.

“That is not who I think it is,”

she says, her tone dangerous.

I can’t let her try to say anything to him. I don’t want him to see me. What do I do? Try to run us into the closest store?

But my body is already doing that. As he walks this way, I jostle Emma leftwards while she tries to go for him. I shush her hissed protest of my intervention; I’m forced to ignore the way my knee bumps into her and cries out in pain. I want to look away from Kyle as we go towards Bath it came from the panic that has now all but vanished.

Emma and I only share one quick look before we both go back to watching Kyle rush to put distance between himself and me.

Only when he’s too far away to see anymore do I finally manage to say, “Oh.”

“Well, that…”

Emma puffs out a laugh.

“…that…is a damn good thing.”

Now the look we share sticks; now we laugh together.

We laugh together about Kyle.

Because he…doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore.

I open my arms to Emma, who flings a hug around me. The waves hitting me now are of relief and shock and delight. I feel like cheering, crying, calling Luke and Joy and my parents even though the first two are at work and I want to share this news with them before letting my mom and dad know.

“Hi,”

comes a new voice, bright yet cautious.

“Everything going great for you two today?”

We end our hug and see a store employee at a nearby display. She’s smiling, but I get the feeling she saw most, if not all, of what happened and is confused.

Emma tells her.

“You know, everything is great,”

and I have to nod my agreement.

“Well, I’m so glad! Gonna celebrate with some shopping?”

Since we’re here, we take a minute to sniff at various candles. Then we leave, and I notice I’m not the only one of us who spends the rest of the walk to Emma’s car peering around to make sure Kyle is gone; I’m not the only one still smiling when we leave the parking lot without so much as a glimpse of him or his car.

This good feeling doesn’t even go away when Emma says.

“Hey, about what we were talking about before we saw him….”

It does lower, settle, make room for the return of a different important topic. It dwindles my smile down to bare bones. But I’m not abandoned to how I felt before.

I want to know what she thinks. I want to know whether she has untangled the confusing facets of loving oneself—because it is hitting me in this moment that loving myself is something I want to do.

So I murmur, “Yeah?”

She sighs, but the sound isn’t totally heavy.

“I think there’s a fine line somewhere in there. Somewhere between listening to others and listening to ourselves. And I think it’s easy to cross. ’Cause, yeah, we should listen to ourselves when it comes to how uncomfortable we are so we know when to make changes, but…but what about the times when we’re too critical? What about when we need other people to pull us out of our head and give us a new perspective?”

I swear I can hear Joy adding in spirit, ‘That’s right. There has to be some balance.’

It brings my smile back.

Emma continues.

“We shouldn’t base how we see ourselves solely on what other people think, good or bad, and we shouldn’t base it solely on our own opinion because if that opinion is cruel, the pain is coming from us. The call is coming from inside the house, right? We need someone to come to our rescue.”

I have to nod and agree.

“To quiet our worry.”

“Yeah.”

I think about how right that feels. Yes, we should all listen to ourselves and do what we think is best for all aspects of our health, but there will inevitably be times when we don’t quite get it right or we’re too hard on ourselves or we’re focused on the wrong things. And…that’s okay. That’s human.

Really, it’s true for all aspects of life, isn’t it?

“Thank you,”

I tell her softly.

“You’re right and—and I wish I had talked to you and Joy sooner.”

I hesitate before admitting.

“Luke has known for a long time.”

She chuckles, not seeming offended in the slightest.

“I’m glad he’s good to you about it, sister.”

I only have time to smile shyly before she sucks in a breath and keeps talking.

“I’m damn glad he’s good to you about everything. That he respects you. That he did his part to make things right between the two of you, that he forgives you. I’m glad he makes you smile. I’m glad he came outside the other night and looked me and Joy in our faces and apologized to us in full, too, and assured us that we can trust him with you, and that he forgives the part we played too. I’m glad he protects you. I’m glad he brings color to your life.”

The honesty gripping her tone waters my eyes.

“Joy, too,”

she adds. She doesn’t appear to be near tears herself, but she definitely sniffles.

“We’re happy for you and we love you and we think you’re beautiful and wonderful.”

Since I can’t hug her again, I settle for reaching over and squeezing the hand she has dangling off the compartment between us. She squeezes back as I say in a slight wobble.

“Thank you forever. I love you and her and think you’re beautiful and wonderful. You’re a treasure. You have such a warm heart, Em.”

She flicks me a closed-lips smile as if she doesn’t like that last part, but I know the truth, and not just because I do glimpse a glisten in her eyes.

“Don’t go telling people that,” she says.

I promise her.

“I won’t. Your reputation is safe with me.”

Thinking back to the mall, I feel whirling relief again that Kyle left me alone of his own accord. If he hadn’t, I don’t know what Emma might’ve said—or done, honestly.

But I do know…actually know, not hope…that the feeling I’ve had about him lately is real.

He won’t be bothering me anymore.

For once, I look forward to the update I need to make to my incident log. It’ll be the last.

—

“Hell yes!”

Luke pulls me into a hug.

“Damn it, I’m happy!”

I hug him back, smiling even as I say.

“Yeah, so am I, but you can’t cuss where guests can hear you.”

“I’m not! We’re in the breakroom.”

“Shouts carry!”

He slips our hug to an end and gives me a look.

“I didn’t shout. I exclaimed.”

A second later, he’s grinning.

“Come on, now, don’t you and your rules ruin my excitement about Kyle officially fucking off, Ms. Goody-Two—”

A throat gets cleared from the doorway.

“Hope being in La-La Land with your boyfriend won’t stop you from clocking in right on time, Maggie. There’s no excusing being late. People may think that you’re a nice little employee, but you don’t warrant special treatment.”

My stomach flips with displeasure. Luke scowls at Ronald, though by the time I turn to look at him myself, he’s already gone.

I would hasten to make sure I’m not at risk of being late for my shift, but I know I’m not. I arrived in plenty of time because I wanted to catch Luke on his break so I could tell him about Kyle in person. Our assistant manager is just nitpicking at me.

More quietly than before, Luke tells me.

“I am beyond sick of him.”

I am, too, but I still have to acknowledge.

“Well, it is important for people to clock in on time if they can.”

Nothing bad happened the one time I was a minute late, but I don’t want to make a habit of it.

“It’s not a big deal if someone starts their shift a few minutes late. That’s not what I mean, though, and you know it.”

I sigh because, yeah, I do.

Luke lightly raises his eyebrows at me.

“He’s being an ass.”

“Yeah, babe, I know.”

“He’s being an ass to you. I don’t fucking like it. And I don’t like that it’s retaliatory, ’cause you didn’t do anything wrong in the first place.”

He crosses his arms and looks at the doorway of the breakroom.

“You know what? He keeps this up and I’m gonna go to Mr. Polk.”

I start to tell him there’s no need for that, but the truth is, I generally agree Ronald is even more out of line than usual.

I think back to last week’s situation with Marcus, when Ronald wrote me up for ‘being rude and antagonistic to a guest.’ He said Marcus complained that I vehemently argued with him when he asked me to find his server for another drink, and that I commented on how intoxicated he already was and told him it was time for him to leave. None of it was true and I told Ronald so—I even told him Marcus is my ex and talked about how he had been rude to me during his visit, plus that I’d previously known him to lie to get people in trouble—but Ronald didn’t believe me. He said Marcus requested I be dealt with lest he go one step higher and complain to Mr. Polk about me and Ronald, and Ronald assured him that wouldn’t be necessary because he trusted his customer. That was when he bitched me out about the importance of being courteous to guests.

The next day turned out to be too much already without me thinking about all that; it was the day I spent on the couch until I went to Luke’s place and fixed everything with him. So the day after that, I filled Luke in on the work stuff—to the tune of him slandering Ronald up and down—and then came here to Mr. Polk. And God, our boss was so great. He listened to me, spoke with the server Marcus had, even reviewed security footage. It was determined that I didn’t do anything unacceptable and that Ronald hadn’t explored every avenue before claiming I did…but that he had knowingly overserved a customer. My write-up was revoked Ronald got a talking-to.

Since then, every time I’ve crossed paths with him, he’s had an even worse attitude than he did the night Marcus was here. He has hunted down reasons to make snide comments, watch over my shoulder while I work, even threaten a write-up that’ll stick.

The unnecessary thing he said a few minutes ago was barely anything, really. Just yesterday, a customer fell in the front area and Ronald tried to blame me despite the woman’s own insistence that her high-heel breaking was the problem. He really tried to blame me—I was accused of everything from not keeping the area clean and dry, to failing to report a dangerous crack in the floor, to paying so little attention to the woman that I didn’t notice her shoe was on the verge of cracking apart.

So, no, that didn’t go anywhere either, but not from a lack of effort on his part.

“I just….”

Luke shakes his head, jaw clenching. He’s still looking at the doorway; I get the feeling he’s been lost in thoughts of his own.

“He sucks. He’s a sucky assistant manager. I’d be better at that job than he is.”

Curiosity piqued, I tilt my head and listen to him quietly go on.

“Not only does his attitude towards his employees suck, but this shit with Marcus was the second time he was cool with overserving people. That we know of. Sorry, I know we said this when we talked about it last week, but I can’t quit thinking about how wrong it is. It’s dangerous. And it’s a bitch move, you know? He’s in freaking management and he still doesn’t have the balls to tell customers what’s what—I’m just a bartender and I’ve had no issue with cutting people off no matter how mad they might get or how much money I could still make off them if I let them keep going. It’s for their own good and for the good of our restaurant. I’d have no problem handling that part of his job. And I’d never accuse my employees of things without a solid reason. Or not hear them out about things. Or be mean to them for having a hard time at work ’cause they’re hurt.”

He scoffs.

“I’d respect people and the job. Easy as that. Too hard for him, though, huh?”

While he takes a breath, I look at him through a new lens.

‘I don’t know what else I’d be good at.’

He said that to me once when we were talking about him tending bar. I asked if he wanted to do it forever and that’s what he said back.

It sounds to me like he’d do well at being Lucent’s assistant manager.

Does he really think so, too, or did he say all this in the heat of his strong dislike for Ronald?

“Anyway.”

He shakes his head and finally looks at me again. The smile he gives me is one hundred percent present; the way he tucks my hair behind one ear is as intent as his mini-rant had been.

Guess he has made the decision to put work stuff on the back burner. I’m on board.

He says.

“God, I’m so happy about how things with Kyle went.”

I nod and smile, too, because I’ve made the very last entry about Kyle in my log and because Luke is fascinating and because even the smallest of his touches delights me and because I just…love him.

Butterflies dance in my stomach. Breath skipping, I reach up and adjust his suspenders even though they don’t need adjusting—these things look so good on him. Then I touch his jaw, his hair.

And softness touches his eyes.

I tell him.

“You make me infinitely happier than even that.”

A gently pulling arm around my waist, a breath over my lips as he slants in.

“Come here, you.”

I don’t have to be told twice. Really, I didn’t have to be told once.

Sweet kisses come in chaste presses, in between which he murmurs that I make him infinitely happier too.

Mmm.

Now, that’ll make a girl feel beautiful.

—

Here in the late hours of the night—or early hours of the morning—I’m awake enough to be exasperated that I’ve just had to steal my blanket back from Luke in my own bed…and to be once again swirled through by something much, much more welcome.

The feeling of being beautiful.

I say ‘once again’ as if it left me for a while after my time with Luke in the breakroom, but it didn’t. It stayed. Even though it had so much to do with him, it also grew to encompass what Emma and I talked about; it grew even more once I was home, when she and Joy took me aside for a few minutes so my pink-haired friend could join her in inundating me with the kind of love and support only those two can give me.

And by the time I was standing at my mirror in my underwear with my pajamas draped over one arm, I felt relaxed. Steady.

Having Luke on my side all this time, in all his varied ways, strengthened certain parts of me. Other parts were strengthened by my best friends because opening up to them, too, helped sort out the ugly tangle in my head. I do wish I’d gone to them sooner because asking for help from trusted loved ones, or even just asking them to listen, is always good. But there in front of my mirror, it occurred to me that none of those three actually held the key to me feeling better. They told me amazing things, bolstered me when I didn’t know how to do it myself, made me think in new ways…yet it was still up to me to really take it all in.

People can tell you anything they want, but whether you internalize it is on you. That’s true for good and bad words.

So even with three incredible people’s love in my head, I had to be the one to look at my mostly naked reflection and see something beautiful.

And I did that.

I smiled at her and told her.

“You are beautiful the way you are. You don’t have to change.”

Quiet was the peace that descended on me as those words faded into the air.

Self-consciousness was still there in twinges, in whispers. It was controlled, though. I thought about some things Luke had said to me before, and I didn’t just think they were right, I knew they were. I find beauty in other people no matter how skinny or curvaceous their body is, so why do I not do that with myself? Why do they deserve it and I don’t? It’s nonsense.

Plus, being able to exercise isn’t a must for anybody. It’s good, but plenty of people don’t do it because they don’t want to and plenty more because they can’t. No one’s worth or attractiveness depends on it; I’m not a failure for not being able to exercise right now, and I wouldn’t be one if I chose to never exercise again. If I want to keep at it because I like how it makes me feel, then okay—I’ll do it if I can. And if I can’t or if I decide I want to chill it out, then that’s okay too.

I remember telling Luke a long time ago that working out was me deciding to do something about my opinion of myself instead of just living with it. But I can see now that the issue was never really that I had a low opinion myself and wasn’t trying to fix it. That’s not why I felt bad. I mainly felt bad because of my mindset.

I can even see that I shouldn’t have judged Marcus’s new girlfriend for being so slim—even though I only thought good things about her, what do I know about how she feels about herself? Maybe she struggles with her own self-confidence. Maybe it’s hard for her to gain weight she wants to gain. I shouldn’t have put her in a box any more than I should’ve put me in one.

Gosh, the sense of freedom all of this brings me feels so good.

I know there will be days when my insecurity comes back up in more than whispers. There will be times when I do think I should change something about myself. But I’ve vowed to always find my way back to this feeling, this perspective, this approval of myself.

Luke rolls around in his sleep—not to try to take more of the blanket again, but to face me and curl his arm across my middle. He gives me an unconscious half-hug, then goes slack and continues slumbering.

I smile as what remained of my exasperation drifts away.

Think I’ll be soon drifting away, too, back into sleep.

I listen to his breaths; shortly, I notice mine starting to match them. I enjoy the weight of his arm over me and the rest of him so close to me.

In the darkness of my closed eyes, I see my reflection from earlier again. I had looked at the places I’d spent so much time thinking were unattractive, and I wondered if I’ve only truly failed myself by not believing I’m good enough just the way I am. And I knew the answer was yes.

Know it now too.

I smile a little bit more, rest a hand on Luke’s arm, and gently brush over it with my thumb until the comfort becomes too great and I have to doze off.